Same name, new recipe

From next week Ofsted will increase its remit to regulate children's social care and adult learning, as well as schools. John Carvel and Lucy Ward on the challenges ahead at the new 'super-inspectorate'

In the early years of the Tony Blair government, when Chris Woodhead stalked the land as chief inspector of schools, most parents and all teachers had a reasonably clear understanding of the purpose of Ofsted - the Office for Standards in Education. Love him or loathe him, Woodhead's mission was to raise standards in classrooms across England, and he did not mind upsetting teachers with acerbic attacks on "incompetents" in the profession.

After Woodhead quit the scene in 2000, the organisation adopted a less abrasive tone, but continued to focus its attention on raising standards in schools and early years care. That remit will be massively extended next week when Ofsted becomes responsible for inspecting children's social care, support services for children and family courts, adult learning in the workplace, and evening classes in communities in every corner of England.

The reach of the new organisation will be enormous. At any one time, more than a third of the population will be using the services it regulates and inspects - not just the 8.2 million children and young people in schools and the 3.6 million in colleges, but also 1.5 million children and parents who benefit from early years services, 300,000 children receiving social care services, 1.3 million adult learners, and 200,000 getting training and support to find employment.

So the concern among the professions coming into Ofsted's regulatory grasp is whether the organisation can understand and balance the interests of disparate groups of service users and providers.

To answer Society Guardian's questions, Ofsted offered an unusual double-headed interview. Christine Gilbert, who took over in October as chief inspector of schools, is to be the executive head of the new merged organisation. Zenna Atkins, who holds boardroom positions in the NHS, the Royal Navy and a leading housing association, is to be the non-executive chair. And they are as different as chalk and cheese.

Gilbert, former chief executive of Tower Hamlets borough council in east London, is a self-disciplined administrator who usually shuns media exposure. Atkins is an outspoken social entrepreneur with a sense of mischief that few dare bring to the boardroom table. While the pair were preparing to be photographed for this article, Atkins made bunny ears behind the chief inspector's head.

The pair seem to agree on fundamentals. They do not think social workers' concern for children's general wellbeing need conflict in any way with teachers' emphasis on educational attainment. Gilbert says: "Tensions may exist in some institutions, but our experience as an inspectorate is that they should not exist. Since September 2005, Ofsted's inspection framework has required us to look at the whole range of Every Child Matters [the government document recrafting children's services]." Ofsted had already adjusted the focus of school inspections to examine the experience of different groups of children, including vulnerable under-achievers."It will be helpful for looked-after children to have one inspectorate rather than three, with a focus on the experience of the child right across all aspects of life."

Atkins says the merger of inspectorates will also be helpful to the establishments being inspected. "A boarding school could have had Ofsted inspecting on Monday and Tuesday and the Commission for Social Care Inspection [CSCI] on Thursday and Friday. There was no communication between the two and they had different requirements. That now stops."

The merger was ordered by Gordon Brown in his 2005 budget speech, as part of a drive to reduce the burden of regulation across the public sector and cut costs. Atkins concedes that the decision to keep the name Ofsted might be controversial. "In the commercial world, mergers that allow the board members of one company to dominate the new organisation are perceived to be takeovers. This has been four organisations coming together to create something entirely new. I understand why the name was kept. With a brand as well known as Ofsted it's sensible to keep it. But this organisation is genuinely new."

During consultation on the merger, concern centred on the incorporation of the Adult Learning Inspectorate (Ali) in the new super-body. If the focus was children and young people, critics argued, what was Ali doing joining the party, when it was doing a good job independently?

Gilbert acknowledges that Ofsted is strongly associated with schools, but insists a focus on post-16 education will not be lost. There will be a new directorate of learning and skills within the body, and fresh efforts to engage with employers.

Gilbert and Atkins have some difficulty articulating any immediate differences in regulation that will result. They want the transition on April 1 to be seamless and to reassure staff transferring from other inspectorates that their professionalism will continue to be respected.

Tough decisions

There may be tough decisions ahead if the new body is to meet its target of cutting spending from £236m in the first year to £186m in 2008/9. One way of doing that will be to use "data farming" to concentrate inspection effort on establishments that give most cause for concern. Ofsted is switching to "risk-based regulation" - gleaning evidence from many sources about the social makeup of the population to check where services may be performing below par.

The Ofsted chiefs insist there will be benefits from a merger. They promise a clearer focus on the "cross-cutting issues" that some or all of the inspectorates have previously tackled separately, leading to broader, more comprehensive research.

Atkins says the courts inspectorate regulating the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service was the only regulator that did not conduct its own survey of issues facing young black men. The reports and recommendations of the other bodies did not mesh properly because each inspectorate approached the subject differently. "If you can take a salami slice across their lives, how much better is it than having three separate pieces," she says.

The super-Ofsted has a duty to focus on service users - children, parents, learners and employers - and the merger should help get closer to them without needless administrative walls getting in the way, Gilbert says. The experiences of children and learners with special needs could be another cross-cutting subject for study, she suggests, while the research fire-power of the merged inspectorate should allow for studies tracking youngsters over long periods.

Aside from the promised improved effectiveness and coordination of inspection, the super-inspectorate also breaks new ground as an employer. The merger will see a significant increase in homeworking, with the children's services inspection team - those formerly within CSCI - all abandoning their bases in big offices to work from home. Together with the childcare inspectors, who already are based at home, the change will make Ofsted one of the biggest users of homeworking in the public sector. For the inspectors there will be compensations: their package includes a computer and broadband connection, mobile phone, satellite navigation kits for inspection visits and subsidised gym membership.

Children, parents and adult learners should brace themselves for change. The new, listening Ofsted is determined to seek out and act on their views more attentively than in the past. Gilbert concedes that more effort is needed to make a reality of consultation. "At the moment kids get written to [before an Ofsted inspection], parents get written to, as they do in children's homes. Are they really a powerful voice? I think we need to do more work."

Atkins points to the innovative consultation techniques developed by CSCI to try to pick up the opinions of children in care, including using child-friendly wording on surveys and inviting responses via texting and email. The mother of two primary age daughters and stepmother to two older girls, her enthusiasm for and knowledge of the latest hi-tech networking and communication trends are impressive.

Search for feedback

When invited just ahead of a school inspection to give their views, parents could email or text rather than committing thoughts to paper, allowing inspectors to go in with an idea of any concerns. Atkins cites YouTube and other social networking sites as ways to reach young people in the search for feedback.

Together with reforms allowing parents to call for an Ofsted investigation if they have concerns about a school, it all sounds like a power shift from provider to user. Is that a reality? "I hope so," says Atkins, "because I think we have to get there. It is where we are going in public services."

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